Linux Drivers for nVidia 8700M GT

Hey! I just bought a new laptop (Sager NP5790) with a 8700M GT and I'm trying to install Ubuntu Feisty Fawn.... but I can't find any drivers for my video card! Does anyone here know of any drivers for the 8700M GT??

 

Oh man, is it x64 or x86? (not that familiar with linux)

 

nv(4) and vesa(4) should work. If you need 3d acceleration, Nvidia's binary driver is your only choice.

 

hmm, I guess fafler, u sorta beat me to it....

 

The easiest way to install the proprietary video drivers for Nvidia (and ATI) is a program called Envy. I highly recommend it.

 

The Xorg open source nv driver does not support your nVidia chipset. You can install the proprietary Linux drivers either through this howto, or by using the Envy tool as mentioned. Also the standard vesa drivers will work too, but not provide any 3d benefits..

 

For, ubuntu i found that installing gutsy was better that feisty for the 8 series mobile cards from nvidia. I say this because Gutsy actually loaded!!

 

Funny thing, those updated versions of software supporting newer hardware

 

did you try downloading from nvidia ? that what always do with my fedora 6 box (it's a desktop but it should work the same way). it comes with an installer and it's quite nice especially these days.

 

Saying "Gutsy actually loaded" is pretty vague.

I have a 8600GT card and Feisty is installed, hence Feisty actually loaded.

I'm guessing what you mean to say is that the normal installation CD for Fiesty did not work because X was not able to drive your GPU (that's my experience too on my machine; I had to use the alternate CD) but that the normal installation CD for Gutsy did work fine. Right?

 

Anyone know of any news here yet? I'm in the same boat now but with Fedora.

Nox

 

See if you can install in non-graphical mode, or otherwise somehow force it to use the vesa driver, which will give you NO acceleration, but you'll still get a GUI desktop. After you get it installed, upgrade to the nvidia driver, and you should be good to go. Also consider getting the Fedora Core 8 - Test 2 release and trying to install from that. It should have better hardware support for new chips like the GeForce 8 series.

 

If you're using Ubuntu pre-Gutsy versions, you might try using nvidia-glx-new instead of nvidia-glx since it supposedly contains more updated drivers. That's been my experience anyhow. Unless you have legacy nVidia hardware you probably ought to stick to nvidia-glx-new anyhow. At least until the open-source drivers manage to get acceleration and such working properly.

 

The driver download from here should work fine as far as I know :

http://www.nvidia.com/object/unix.html

You would first need to come out of X.... To do that you can login as root which will go into X.... There open a terminal and type init 3 to switch to Runlevel 3..... Then type rmmod nvidia to unload the nvidia module (if already present and loaded).... Then type sh NVIDIA-Linux-x86-100.14.19-pkg1.run to run the install script..... More info can be found from the Readme on the nvidia site itself : http://us.download.nvidia.com/XFree86/Linux-x86/100.14.19/README/index.html

I know installing this way sounds a little bit complicated but all the steps are well documented and kinda easy too....

 

I tried envy with my 8700M GT (clevo D901C) and ubuntu 7.10 (64bit).
The result is that I cannot even run "terminal". The window is completely white.
Actually I need to run Maya...

has anybody managed to get the 8700M GT running with a laptop?

thanks

 

I just intalled Mint (Ubuntu 7.10) and for the GPU drivers, I got the message "Although it is not recomended, Ubuntu can use non-Ubuntu drivers for your 8600M GT video adapter in order to use 3d hardware acceleration" And then it installed 100.19

 

Mint uses envy for driver search and installation. I also had choosen envy.
And it downloaded and installed nvidia-glx-new.
On http://packages.ubuntu.com/gutsy/x11/nvidia-glx
it seems the "not-new" version of the "glx" driver is the right one...

Actually I have no knowledge of linux drivers or linux notebook drivers.
so, whats the difference between

nvidia-glx (see the link above)

Nvidia 100.19.14 (I couldn`t find any data on the net which explain what it is)

169.07 on (http://www.nvidia.com/object/linux_display_amd64_169.07.html)

many thanks for help!

edit: just checked Mint, runs really fine! Installs glx-new. No display problem. But its only 32 bit, I need 64 bit!